Projects

NORC was selected to conduct a rigorous and independent evaluation of the communications campaign for the 2010 Census to assess the campaign's success and help preparations for the 2020 Census. More

In collaboration with Principal Investigators John Walsh from Georgia Tech and Ashish Arora and Wes Cohen from Duke University and the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), NORC collected survey data from more than 6,600 U.S. businesses via computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI). More

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) is partnering with NORC at the University of Chicago and the Urban Institute (UI) to strengthen and support various aspects of their AmeriCorps State and National grantees' evaluation activities. By providing grantees with the tools they need to improve the quality of their program evaluations, CNCS hopes to better estimate the broader community impacts of AmeriCorps programs.  More

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has contracted with the Urban Institute and its partners, among them NORC at the University of Chicago, to conduct an assessment of housing needs in tribal areas in the United States.  More

As part of the Person Identification Validation System Assessment engagement with the Census Bureau, NORC has conducted a review of the Census Bureau’s record linkage methods associated with the PVS, as well as an environmental scan of record linkage methods used by other government agencies—both within and outside of the U.S.—and private enterprises.  More

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHHS) Children’s Bureau has contracted with the Urban Institute and its partners—the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago and NORC—to conduct an evaluation of selected programs funded through the John Chafee Foster Care Independence Program (CFCIP). More

Since 1972, the General Social Survey (GSS) has been monitoring societal change and studying the growing complexity of American society. The GSS is NORC’s longest running project, and one of its most influential.GSS Spending Priorities.pdf More

​Researchers at the University of Houston and NORC are designing a small panel survey to illuminate the factors contributing to foreclosure (including a test of financial literacy) and what happens to families after they leave their foreclosed home. An additional research question is the impact of foreclosure on children.  More

In 2011, NORC was awarded Phase I of a project to design and implement an Impact and Process Evaluation of the Minnesota Reading Corps (MRC) Program on behalf of the Corporation for National & Community Service (CNCS). The core activities of the MRC program are training, placing, and monitoring AmeriCorps members in school-based settings to implement reading and literacy interventions to children in both preschool (PreK) and K through 3rd grade (K-3) programs. Among its goals, Phase I was to explore options for designing a future impact evaluation of the MRC that assesses the impact of the program on students' literacy levels and on AmeriCorps members' (literacy tutors) educational goals and civic engagement. More

The Making Connections survey, launched in ten poor urban communities, examines mobility, social capital, neighborhoods, resident participation, economic hardship, the availability and utilization of services, and child and adolescent well-being. More